United States Justice System Falls Behind That Of Other High-Income Nations [CHARTS]

Compared to other high-income countries, the United States is falling behind when it comes to ensuring its citizens' access to civil and criminal justice.

The United States ranked 19 on the Rule of Law Index 2014, an index created by the World Justice Project that measures how the “rule of law is experienced in everyday life” in 99 countries.

The index is based on more than 100,000 household surveys and 2,400 expert surveys and is assessed using 47 indicators organized around eight themes, according to the WJP report.

While the U.S. scored relatively high in the “order and security” category, it scored the lowest in the access to “civil justice” and “criminal justice” categories. The U.S.’s score in the “regulatory enforcement” category was also low.

Every single country in the top five rankings of this index were Nordic countries -- Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands.

The country with the lowest ranking was Venezuela, followed by Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Cameroon.